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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27667675">It wasn't over for me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/brickk/pseuds/brickk'>brickk</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/M, Flashbacks, Post-Break Up, Slow Burn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:02:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,233</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27667675</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/brickk/pseuds/brickk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey moves to a new city for a new job and learns to deal with being alone again post break- up</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>It wasn't over for me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So this is a bit of a self indulgent fic that Im hoping is going to be somewhat cathartic for me as it's loosely (read: quite heavily) based on a past relationship and break up of mine. Obviously Ive changed a few details to suit the characters and keep things unidentifiable from my own life/relationship. This is un beta'd and I will keep updating as things progress and characters are added in. Hope you enjoy - appreciate the feedback very much!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sleep wasn’t coming again; even past 2am the traffic sounds were a steady heartbeat in the middle of downtown Coruscant. Rey watched red burn to green and then orange, measuring the lethargic midnight hours through each cycle. She slowed her breathing to try match the flickering through the plywood boards that had been scavenged to serve as makeshift curtains in the small bedroom. It was her first real bedroom, real home, real space that was hers and only hers.</p><p> </p><p>The rent was good, cheap, a middle floor studio room in a three-story building owned by a lovely elderly couple who had the penthouse floor. The ground floor was a reasonably upmarket looking hairdresser, her middle floor neighbors were heard but never seen. On Sundays there was a veggie market across the street, and if Rey was lucky enough to get home from work before six she could usually get an on street park for her old green station wagon less than a quarter mile radius from her door. She was independent, self-sufficient, twenty-two, a young professional living the dream. She was miserable.</p><p> </p><p>Rey turned from her back to her stomach with a deep exhale and reached to her phone for the seven hundredth time. The harsh glare made her squint and she scrambled for the small toggle on the device’s side to turn down the brightness. Messenger app was already enlarged on the screen, Rey stared at Poe’s profile icon willing herself not to open the conversation thread. She didn’t need to read it, she’s spent the last five hours learning it by heart, what good would it do? On the other hand, what if in her haste she’d misinterpreted something? She had to be sure.</p><p> </p><p>Rey devoured the grey blurb like a frenzied animal, pupils dilated and flickering side to side, over and over, gut twisting a little more with every repeated paragraph.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Poe:</strong>    </p><p>
  <em>“Hey Reyrey, I miss you. I just got back from holiday and heard…about what happened…Im so so sorry. God I just wish I could have been there for you. You know how much I love you and am here for you right?? And what he did…you deserve so much better Reyrey. Are you ok??? How’s the new job going? </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Listen, I know you probably don’t want to hear this right now but he’s really sorry. He never wanted to hurt you like that, you know that right? If it could have been different, he never would have ended things. He’s really cut up about things too, he’s sorry…it just, I think it just was too much too soon maybe? Argh this so isn’t my place ReyRey, I shouldn’t be saying that to you, but he’s my best friend too. Ok, shit, Im gonna butt out now and leave this where it is.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Rey, Im here for you always, message me or call me anytime ok????? Sys x”   </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Rey clicked her phone off without replying, she wanted to scream or vomit, she settled on crying, again. Tears meant nothing anymore, this had been her natural state for the past two months. December and January were a literal salt-water blur. February was steadily progressing toward March and things hadn’t really been getting any better. Maybe she needed therapy, that thought was becoming a more common alarm bell in her mind over the past few weeks; realistically, she could barely afford milk.</p><p>Rey had managed to pull herself together enough to present a reasonably professional front at her new graduate nursing job. Come sundown and it was like some sort of circadian or pavlovian response, the bright customer service smile was washed away by fresh tear tracks that eased her into fitful sleep, usually sometime around 3am, to be shortly afterward awakened by a 6:30am alarm. Lather, rinse, repeat.  </p><p> </p><p>“Oh he’s really cut up about things, well fuck me how awful for him” Rey muttered to herself, feeling a fresh onslaught welling behind her eyes. “What must that feel like, I can’t possibly fucking imagine” The last half of her soliloquy was garbled into a tissue along with half of the contents of her sinuses. God she just wanted to drown and never have to think about this ever again, him ever again, them ever again.</p><p> </p><p>Thoughts started to race as Rey wholeheartedly gave over to insomnia and decided to play the full rundown of the last two months events all over again, with the fresh new take of Poe’s message as added seasoning. How dare Poe play the go between and take <em>his </em>side. How dare he ask how she is and then tell her <em>he’s</em> sorry, act like it could have been <em>different</em> if things hadn’t moved so <em>fast. </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“He’s the one who bloody proposed to ME!” Rey yelled into her pillow, slamming her open palm against the wall behind her bed. A sonorous banging answered back from her neighbors to the right. “Sorry…” she stage-whispered back meekly.</p><p> </p><p>Rey grasped her phone one last time, heart beating in her throat as she swiped across to her text messages and scrolled down to his name. It used to be two hearts either side of a puppy emoji, in honor of his basset hound. A month ago, she had finally resolved the courage to change it to his name, in case she had a legitimate reason to have a conversation with him again, or someone else needed to use her phone to contact him in a professional context. You know, totally sane, normal reasoning necessitating multiple hours thought over multiple days deciding whether it was ok to still have you ex saved as love heart emojis. Rey’s thumb hovered over their conversation; the last message was dated December 18<sup>th</sup>. A deep inhale and Rey squeezed her eyes shut as she tapped on <strong>Ben Solo. </strong></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“I didn’t wan’t to wake you. Come find me in the back yard when you get up”</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She remembers reading that and feeling so buoyant. Walking through his empty and silent flat, the early morning light reflecting off the ring he had given her three nights ago, she thought she couldn’t possibly be any happier. Rey expected to find him out there with the paper and coffees for them both, or maybe meditating by the gardenias. What she didn’t expect was his red rimmed eyes staring through her as she skipped down the steps, harsh inhales and a guilty flush creeping up his neck.</p><p> </p><p>All it took was a few sentences. Rey could pass a lie detector test that she didn’t actually know what he said. She thinks she probably dissociated, she was good at that, had an entire childhood of practice. But when she concentrates hard while she lies awake at night words like “<em>mistake” </em>and <em>“I can’t do this” </em>echo around her brain.</p><p> </p><p>One hour and forty five minutes later he had dropped her off at the airport for her flight up north to her new job, gave her half a smile and wished her a good journey. And that was that. Three years a boyfriend, three days a fiancé, and three months of radio silence.</p><p> </p><p>Rey turned onto her back running her fingers along the lines she had scratched into the underside of the windowsill next to her bed, one for each new day alone, and watched the red light waver from green to orange and back again.</p>
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